It was standing room only and barely enough space for that last Friday (2) on Government House’s front lawn.

Invited guests from seemingly every cross-section of Cayman’s community were there to pay their respects and say goodbye to Governor Duncan Taylor and his wife, Marie-Beatrice, who have been with us for 3 1/2 years.

It has been an ‘interesting’ roller coaster ride with seemingly confrontation around every corner from one sector of Cayman’s political wing from the start of Taylor’s tenure here. The disgraceful taunt at Cayman’s governor from former premier, McKeeva Bush, to “go and sun his buns” still angers me for its rudeness and this was only one such jibe from the same source.

Governor Taylor was the complete polite diplomat who never once resorted to such ill mannered, disrespectful, ignorant, shameful and self-demeaning outbursts that lowered the reputation of Caymanians and damaged any hope of investment from persons with impeccable credentials. What it encouraged was persons who had dubious reputations and we can thank the Governor who intervened and stopped the Cayman Islands from going down that road to ruin.

In Governor Taylor’s farewell speech he named no names but referred to ‘good governance’. He said he had asked a friend before accepting the position of Cayman’s governor what does a governor do? His friend said, ‘govern well’ with honesty. Taylor said he has tried to do this and he only used his authority when it was absolutely necessary to overrule something he considered did not conform to good governance. He drew applause when he said honesty was integral and if anyone of us here saw something was dishonest and did nothing about it we were as dishonest as the perpetrator.

Cayman’s new premier, Alden McLaughlin, thanked the governor very much and he said he had had a good relationship with Governor Taylor from the time he was Leader of the Opposition and now he was premier. He said he hadn’t always agreed with him but he had always held him in the highest respect.

McLaughlin said he had known a lot of Cayman’s past governors and Duncan Taylor was “one of the good ones.”

Various presentations were made to the governor and his wife, the first being a beautiful artifact made from a conch shell that was handcrafted by a local artist and presented by the artist and McLaughlin. Then Royal Cayman Islands Police Service Commissioner David Baines made a number of presentations on behalf of the police including an amusing one that I will say no more about but produced much laughter.

The master of ceremonies was the one and only Vicky Wheaton and she brought the party to an end with a very amusing song parody of the Irish group Smokie’s big hit “Living Next Door to Alice” except Alice was changed to Duncan. Vicky’s word changes were delightful and she got everyone to sing the last line with her “I’ll never get used to not living next door to Duncan.”

We will now have to get used to living next door to our new ‘Alice’, actually ‘Helen’, when Mrs. Helen Kilpatrick arrives here in August to govern. As she will be Cayman’s first female governor this could be even more ‘interesting’.